Cones[1] on short branchlets, ½ inch long; scales four, each with a minute projecting point below the apex, bright brown, two larger fertile and two smaller unfertile. Seeds one or two on each of the larger scales, oblique, with a narrow short wing on one side below, and an oblique broad oval wing on the other side above, the two wings being upper and lower, rather than lateral in position. (A.H.)
A tree, said by Bridges—who was the first to send home seeds to Low of Clapton in 1847—to attain occasionally 80 feet in height. It grows on the lower slopes of the Andes of Southern Chile, from lat. 34° southward to Valdivia; and was collected by me in the valley of the Rio Limay below Lake Nahuel-Huapi at 3500 to 4500 feet. Here it grows scattered on grassy hillsides or in open groves, and is a graceful tree of 50 to 60 feet in height. A photograph of our camp in this valley, taken by Mr. Calvert, gives a good idea of its appearance (Plate 141).
Though from the climate of the region in which it grows, this tree ought to be hardy in the warmer parts of England, and though in Mr. Palmer's tables a small number of trees seem to have survived the frost of 1860-61, as at Bishopstowe, Nettlecombe, Southampton, and even at Keir in Perthshire, yet by far the greater number of the plants introduced in 1847 were killed; and it is now very rare in cultivation; but seems, though slow in growth, to thrive at several places. By far the largest specimen I have seen is at Whiteway near Chudleigh, Devon, the property of Lord Morley, which in 1907, according to the measurements of the gardener, Mr. Nanscawen, was 46 feet 8 inches by 5½ feet. We have also seen specimens in England at Blackmoor, Hants, the seat of Lord Selborne; and in Ireland at Castlewellan, the largest tree there being 20 feet high in 1903; at Powerscourt, where in 1906 there was a tree 28 feet high by 3 feet 3 inches, with the bark scaling off in long, narrow, papery slips, the habit being much wider than that of L. decurrens, with ascending branches; and at Kilmacurragh, Wicklow, where there is a tree 25 feet in height. (H.J.E.)
LIBOCEDRUS DONIANA
- Libocedrus Doniana, Endlicher, Syn. Conif. 43 (1847); Kirk, Forest Flora New Zealand, 157, tt. 82, 82a (1889); Kent, Veitch's Man. Coniferæ, 254 (1900); Cheeseman, New Zealand Flora, 646 (1906).
- Libocedrus plumosa, Sargent, Silva N. Amer. x. 134 (1896).
- Dacrydium plumosum, D. Don, in Lambert, Pinus, ed. 2, Appendix 143 (1828).
- Thuya Doniana, Hooker, London Journ. Bot. i. 571, t. 18 (1842).
A tree, attaining in New Zealand 100 feet in height and 15 feet in girth, with reddish, stringy bark scaling off in ribbons. Branchlets flattened, with leaves similar in shape and arrangement to those of L. chilensis; lateral leaves adnate in the lower half, free and spreading in the upper half, acute, mucronate, green and shining above, glaucescent with a white band below; median leaves appressed, ovate, acute, mucronate, scarcely glandular.
Cones about ½ inch long; scales four, each with a lanceolate acuminate, erect,
- ↑ Cones ripened on young trees at Les Barres in France in 1900. Pardé, Arb. Nat. des Barres, 31 (1906).
